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Thursday, May 19, 2016

The Real World

My graduation from WWU 2005

As always, May is a turning point
in young lives everywhere. The caps and gowns are a visible symbol of young
people leaving the comfortable nest of home and “Pomp and Circumstance” into the “real world.”My two oldest grandchildren
both earned the all important diploma to signify their accomplishments—one a
college degree and the other finished high-school headed off to college.
Although I’ve been with them through the years, it doesn’t seem possible they
are both adults now.

I can imagine how proud their
Grandpa Jim would have been! The grandkids were the center of his life, before
his real world became a scary and confusing place.

I can’t help but compare the world
today to what it was when I graduated high school long, long ago. When I was a
teenager, problems and failures were
private family business, not shared with the world via the internet. I probably
have a dozen photos of me growing up, but now kids may have a dozen photos
posted online in a single day.

In my wildest imagination, I could
never have predicted a time when we would carry around a device in our pockets with
access to the entire world at our fingertips. I couldn’t have foreseen flipping
through hundreds of channels on a television set. We had three channels and the
remote control was whichever kid was
told to turn the channel, and rotate the antenna.

We still don’t have flying cars
like the Jetson’s had, but some have truly amazing optional features available:
Cars that warn you if someone is in your blind spot, adjustable everything, and
cameras that seem to know exactly where to point.

My son told a story about his
daughter sitting in an older vehicle. Looking around, she pointed at the manual
window crank, and asked, “What’s that for?”

“You roll the window down with it,”
my son said, demonstrating.

“Well, that’s just stupid,” she
said. Things that seem stupid now were commonplace not so long ago.

My pursuit of a degree was delayed
due to having children and then going through many years of trying to stretch
the dollars to pay the bills. I received an associate’s degree from a community
college when my kids were young, but didn’t get my bachelor’s until 2005.

School certainly changed between
high school and community college. I tested out of a math class in junior
college without realizing that it wasn’t considered cheating to use a
calculator. Who knew?

By the time I was working on my
bachelors, I had a PC and internet. I took online classes. One of my classes
required us to check out websites and evaluate them for trustworthiness. In
many ways, getting my degree later in life gave me skills and confidence to tap
into the power of technology.

The changes I’ve seen throughout my
lifetime, make me realize how mind boggling the world will be in another
century. What will the world be like for my grandchildren when they are my age?
What will the “real world” be like then?

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Early Onset Alzheimer’s

This award-winning blog is a must-read for individuals experiencing early-onset Alzheimer’s. Less common than standard age-related dementias, early onset Alzheimer’s is virtually always a surprise to diagnosed individuals. Linda Fisher, blogger and author, knows the difficulty of this condition firsthand.

In her Early Onset Alzheimer’s blog, she teaches readers not just how to manage such a frightening condition, but also how to live life to the fullest. Her passion for helping others – showing everyone that life with Alzheimer’s is worth living – is a tremendous gift. Thank you, Linda!

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Early Onset Blog has received several blog awards. Due to new Google regulations, the links had to be removed. Past awards have included the #1 Health Blog , Top 10 blog in 2010, Top 25 Blog award in 2010, and a Top 50 award in 2012. We appreciate the recognition, but also understand the need to remove the links.

When Jim returned from Vietnam, he was stationed at Fort Riley, and we spent about a year and a half living in Manhattan, Kansas. With ba...

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Books are a print version of Linda's award-winning Blog. These books are published for the benefit of those without Internet access or who just prefer to curl up with a book rather than browsing online. If you enjoy Linda's blog posts, you might want to purchase the book for a friend or family member.

Fisher began her online journal to share her experiences with families affected by early onset dementia. Her essays provide insight into family life often from a humorous viewpoint. She writes from her experiences as a longtime Alzheimer's Association volunteer and advocate and ten years as a primary caregiver for her husband, Jim.

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I have participated in a link exchange with the Fisher Center for Alzheimer's Research Foundation. They have this blog http://earlyonset.blogspot.com/ listed in their Alzheimer's blogs.

Lindsay Nason wrote about my Early Onset Blog: "I want to thank you for sharing your powerful experience and your creative suggestions with others. . . . Your blog offers a unique and personal insight into this disease, which can be such a comfort to other members of the Alzheimer's community."

Thank you, Lindsay, for your kind words and for including the Early Onset Blog on your website.